'The First Modern War' explored at Glidden Homestead

Bill Cummings will present a historical overview of World War I during a program at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Glidden Homestead and Historical Center, 921 W. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb.

DeKALB – Visit the Glidden Homestead and Historical Center on Sunday to learn about DeKalb’s connection to World War I and modern war.

The Homestead will host a one-hour program on WWI presented by Bill Cummings at 2 p.m. He will provide a historical overview of the first “modern war,” including the use of tanks, weapons of mass destruction, air power, and, of course, barbed wire.

Cummings is a retired Northern Illinois University professor of accounting and has convened a class about WWI in the NIU Lifelong Learning Institute. His talk comes at the midpoint of the centennial commemoration of the war, between the 1917 American entry into the war until the end of fighting in 1918. Programs at Glidden Homestead are made possible in part by the Mary E. Stevens Concert and Lecture Fund.

“So much of what we see in the news today has origins in the first World War,” Rob Glover, executive director of Glidden Homestead, said in a news release. “Exploring the development of and our connection to what can be considered modern ‘tools’ of war, can help us to demystify and understand their use in the world now.”

Also on Sunday, from noon to 4 p.m., visitors can tour the home where Joseph Glidden and his family lived when he created barbed wire in 1873 and see a working onsite blacksmith shop.